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  %KNOW OWN INTIMATE EXPERIENCE GOOD EVIL SEX MORAL 930211

     To  search  for  integrity  and honesty  we  must  be
willing to seek ways to do violence to the collusions  and
addictions  which do violence to us and our communities---
yet seek to avoid doing violence to ourselves or  to  each
other.

     To do violence to our collusions and addictions is to
expose their lack of integrity;  for there is no integrity
in  them.  Their appearance of  integrity  is false. There
essence is dishonesty.  Their appearance of coherence is a
mask.   Yet real people wear the mask;  and it  is  not  a
simple matter to tear off the mask without doing  violence
to the people who wear the mask.

     Our dilemma is to find ways to expose the incoherence
of the mask without doing violence to the integrity of the
people who wear the mask.  We  cannot resolve our  dilemma
without being willing to seek ways to do violence  to  our
collusions  and  addictions  while seeking  to avoid doing
violence to ourselves and/or to each other.

     We cannot resolve our dilemmas or the conflicts which
are  engendered by our dilemmas without being honest  with
ourselves  and  with  each other about  our  own  personal
experiences.   We must learn how to own our  own  personal
experiences  which  our  collusions  and  addictions  have
taught,   commanded,   seduced and otherwise mislead us to
dis-own and be dishonest about.  This we cannot do without
giving to ourselves and  to each other the security within
which  we may feel free to be honest  with  ourselves  and
with   each   other  about  our  most  intimate   personal
experiences.

     We cannot be honest with each other unless we can  be
honest   with   ourselves  about  our  own  most  personal
experiences;   and  vice  versa.   The  two  inter-related
abilities are intimately inter-dependent upon each  other.
It  is  futile to become stuck trying to figure out  which
one  must come first.  They evolve together;  or  dissolve
together.

     We  cannot honestly share with each other what we  do
not  honestly own.  We must learn how to honestly own  our
own  experiences  as we seek to  honestly  share  our  own
experiences.  We cannot be honest about other realities if
we  cannot  honestly share our own  experiences.   Honesty
about  abstractions  cannot  survive  in  the  absence  of
honesty  about our own experiences.  They evolve together;
or dissolve together.

     If  our root preoccupations are manipulative  efforts
to  try  to understand-predict-and-control our environment
in efforts to try to  satisfy  our  own  isolated personal
desires,  goals, intentions,  expectations,  requirements,
mandates,  and sense of do's and dont's; then we are bound
to   try  to  control  each  other  in  isolation  and  in
alienation.   Dishonesty  is  bound to become one  of  our
manipulative  tools;   and dishonesty  is  essentially  an
alienative tool.

     To  search  for  integrity  and honesty  we  must  be
willing to seek ways to do violence to the collusions  and
addictions  which do violence to us and our communities---
yet seek to avoid doing violence to ourselves or  to  each
other.   We  must seek ways to quit using dishonesty as  a
manipulative/alienative  tool;  while seeking the kinds of
reconciliation  which  will  promote  both  personal   and
communal  integrity.   This  we cannot do so  long  as  we
continue  to protect the attitudes,   behaviors,   habits,
values, and ideals which are protective of our most highly
respected collusions and addictions.  Power corrupts,  and
the respected power  which  is  used to protect addictions
and collusions corrupts absolutely.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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